Our First Week

It has been a week since we left the UP and our 6^th day in Sweden. For the most part we have just been trying to get out and walk around and learn a little about the area. Our apartment is part of a sugar beet farm.

(The drive way we walk up to get to our house. There are farm fields all around us.)

We have a little corner of one of the farm houses. We love it. It is very cozy and homey.

(The main house.)

(Rounding the corner to our house.)

(Our mailbox. If anyone needs the address email me. We love getting mail.)

(We are on the far left. We have no idea what the rest of the building is used for. The rest of the students live in the main house. There are a few family houses around to. )

(The light our landlord put in so we could see when we come home at night)

(Welcome)

Our landlord (I’m sure it is partly his wife) has tried to make it very comfortable for us. He brought over sheets and blanket and told us not to worry about buying them we could borrow theirs. He also had towels, rugs and even brought a table runner over to “brighten” up the room. He told us that some of the carpets and the table runner his mother had made back in the day when you couldn’t go to the stores to buy it. He speaks very good English and is very easy to understand.

Who knew it would take moving all the way across and ocean to have shopping close by. We have mall that is less than a mile from our front door. It is huge and has everything that we will need while here. I laughed the first time we walked in when I saw the size of the place. We don’t have bikes yet so it has been very nice to have shopping so close so we don’t have to carry groceries very far.

(This is the view from my front door. Burlov Center and Lidl…Shopping…)

Our first day was a little crummy weather wise it was windy and rainy. (A rule my family learned was that in Europe you never let a little rain stop you or you will never see anything.) So we still adventured out to find the quickest way to get to the school. Our way we found some ducks. They began following us thinking that we were going to feed them.

It is a good 20min hike to the campus. We got on a computer for a few short minutes to let our families know that we were alive and then headed home. David didn’t have his login information and wouldn’t get it until the first day of classes.

(We found campus. David is looking at the map trying to find the forestry buildings.)

So we headed home for the evening after stopping at the Burlov Center (the mall) to get some groceries.

The rest of our week was spent just meandering around Arlov (the little town we live in) and getting to know the area. We are both going to be in great shape when we come home. We have walked at least 5miles a day as it is our only way to get around. The nearest bus station is half way to campus anyway so we figure at that point we might as well just keep walking. We may catch the train to Copenhagen sometimes to see the sites but other than that we have everything we need close to home.

(We ventured out one day and came across this. If you stand at just the right place on the drive way to our house you can see it. It looks like in the warmer months it is open to look around but it was all closed up the day that we were there.)

(Our house is located just behind the dark patch of trees on the right.This is from the hill where the windmill is.)

(Just some yard decorations. They use dogs a lot in advertising and decoration. We have alos noticed they own very small dogs around here. We haven’t seen any large dogs.)

(The Arlov Library. I will probably spend a lot of time here. It is closer than campus and I can apply for a card to use their internet.)

(The sugar beet factory.)

(We wandered into this church on one of our trips out and couldn’t figure out if it was catholic or Lutheran. It had decorations that could go either way and none of the literature we found said one way or another. It was a very beautiful church though.)

Malmo is only about 3miles away .We are going to try and attend a church we have yet to find it but it is on my list to find this week. Our landlord is working to fix up some bikes for us the last tenants ruined them I guess. We are hoping that we can just bike the 3miles.

(Malmo in the distance.)

David started his classes today (Monday, January 16, 2012.) So I am on my own now to find stuff to do. I am sure that something will come up and I will be able to fill the 8.5 hours with something.